Friday, October 03, 2008

Election 08: Win, Lose, or Draw (without the win option)

As I sat through about three quarters of last night’s VP debate, the sick feeling in my gut grew. Now as I wake up in a world of “Palin holds her own” headlines, I’m downright nauseous. While just about every plain speak word out of that small minded (literally and figuratively) former weatherperson makes me sick, it was the whole spectacle of last night’s event that has left me feeling extra cynical to my stomach.

In my 25 years of observing political campaigns (yes my folks started me young) I don’t know if I’ve ever witnessed a more depressingly staged race. Not only could you literally see Palin waiting for her next words to be fed through her earpiece, but you could also see Biden’s strings pulled as well. Clearly, the attitude of the Obama/Biden campaign was "just don’t make the girl cry." Instead, we got a weeping Biden (probably the only genuine moment of the night) and the largest pair of kid gloves I’ve ever seen.

Worse yet both Obama and Biden have missed the chance over the last two weeks to really differentiate themselves from their opponents. Except for a pledge to end the war, Biden, and Obama the week before, gave answers that sounded exactly like their counterparts. I like Joe Biden and I enjoyed him on the campaign trail when he was a candidate himself, but clearly, he’s had his balls cut off by the middlemen of the party. Last night, Palin served up a softball and asked if he thought it was class warfare to tax the rich. He gave a softball right back to her and mumbled for about two minutes. Hey buddy how about just saying straight up, yes its class warfare because our lower and middle class folks just can’t afford to live right now so lets tax the shit out of those that can afford McMansions and Hummers. How about you attack Palin on her belief that women who are raped by their fathers can’t have abortions? How about, god forbid, you actually take a real stand for LGBT marriage and rights?

There was a lot of talk going into this election about McCain and Obama breaking down partisan lines. I think these two and maybe all the pundits need to learn what partisan is. What we are getting are party lines drawn in carefully worded flexible ideologies and not actual issues. Why are we so scared to have a real discussion of issues?

Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden do you know why John Kerry lost to a man who will go down as one of the worst Presidents ever? He didn’t separate himself enough from W and ended up sounding just about the same. You two can talk about change until the cats come home, but until you actually share some ideas that actually challenge America you run the risk of suffering defeat to the shriveled peanut that is McCain and that scary ass Bible thumper Palin.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting to know.